“You let go of me this instant,” Ellie struggled in his grasp.
“Shall I lay her out on the window seat, or maybe we could strap her down on top of the desk?”
“Confine her in any chair,” the doctor said, approaching with the glinting blade.
“No!” Ellie wriggled desperately, finally sitting on the floor and dangling from Hugh’s grasp with one arm while gripping the carpet with her other hand.
“She doesn’t seem to appreciate your healing expertise, Doctor,” Hugh said.
“Silly wench.” Dr. Goddard shook his head with disapproval. “This is not the way to behave when a professional offers treatment.”
“Thank you, but I feel my sister has already taken good care of me.”
“Doctor, I could sling her over my shoulder and lock her in a closet until she comes to her senses?”
“That hardly seems necessary.”
“Well, clearly she’s not willing to submit to treatment,” said Hugh, looking thoroughly amused. “If she feels she can live without cutting, let her suffer under that illusion until we need to call you back to the house, eh?”
“Nay, blooding in cases such as these … ”
Hugh reached into his pocket and pulled out a well fed purse. “I’m going to pay you for all your trouble,” he said, letting go of Ellie’s arm. She scrambled to her feet and dashed to the safety of the door. “Perhaps you’ll join me for a glass of claret, Doctor. It’s an excellent vintage. Imported from France.”
“France, you say?”
“The very same.”
“Not from Bordeaux by any chance?”
“I believe it is.”
The doctor smiled. “Ay, we’ll let the foolish filly have her head, for now.”
Hugh fixed a stern look on her. “You may go now to your sister.”
Trembling with outrage, Ellie limped from the library.
In the gray morning light, nearly an hour before their usual practice time, Ellie galloped Manifesto over the mocked-up Haldon Race course.
As the finish line flashed under Manifesto’s hooves, she heard Hugh shouting, “Toby, pull up. Pull up!” Between Hugh’s behavior in the haymow and his performance in the library, she was in no mood to talk to him, but there was no logical place to go, no excuse she could think of to avoid him.
Her lack of direction slowed Manifesto, and within seconds Valaire galloped next to them. Hugh took a firm grip on Manifesto’s bridle.
“He’s doing better and better over the fences,” she blabbered as they came to a stop. “I figure we took the four miles in less than eight minutes.”
“What is the matter with you?” he barked. “I rode all over hell and damnation yesterday and couldn’t find a footprint. Why are you hiding from me?”
“I’m not.” She tried to turn Manifesto’s head out of Hugh’s grip on the bridle.
He held fast. “Then where did you go after I left the barn?”
“I told you, I don’t want the Albright girls seeing me. It might make for a lot of unhappiness.”
“Damn the bloody Albright girls. I left you in the haymow for three minutes, and by the time I got back you were gone.”
Ellie tried to keep her voice calm. “There’s nothing to tell. I just thought it was appropriate to get about my work for the morning. Besides, why should I wait half naked in a haymow so you can come back and finish the job? Find someone else for your grass seed trysts, Lord Davenport. I lack the cud to chew it.”
Hugh’s face contracted with hurt. He let go of Manifesto. “There’s been no one else. I swear it.”
“It certainly was a familiar enough scene to the stable boys.”
“They use the haymow for that purpose, not me.”
“Well, that makes it all the more disgusting and despicable. Waiting in the stable boys’ dirty straw while you crack jokes about the blowsabellas you bed there. It makes me sick!”
Hugh sat back on Valaire, shaking his head. “But I love you,” he said. The words seemed to startle him as much as they did her. Fear flicked across his brown eyes, then settled on her with conviction.
“What?”
“I love you.”
Ellie smacked his leg with her whip. “Why would you say that? Don’t love me.” She turned Manifesto to canter away when a powerful arm circled her waist and lifted her from the saddle as easily as if she were a toddler.
He cradled her in his arms and rested her sidesaddle in front of him. Ellie struggled to free herself.
Manifesto, rider-less, took a step then stood perplexed.
“Addlepated fool, put me down,” cried Ellie.
“Do you want to know why I said I love you?”
“Because you’re a damnable rogue!”
“I love you because you’re the most marvelous woman I’ve ever met.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. I’m a stable hand.”
“You’re nothing of the kind. You’re a champion trainer, you’re intelligent, you’re beautiful, you make me laugh, and I want you more than anyone I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Stop speaking like that!” she said, trying to twist from his arms.
Hugh held her hard against his chest. “I’ll stop nothing. You stop the rocks from rising on the moors and I’ll stop loving you.”
Manifesto, realizing he was free to roam, took a tentative step away. “My horse!” said Ellie, lunging for the bridle. She caught a rein, but Hugh slipped the harness from Manifesto’s head and draped it over a course hurdle. The stallion shook himself and trotted away. “What are you doing?” she fretted. “You’ll never see him again!”
“Do you to understand that I love you?”
“You just paid five thousand pounds for that animal. Are you mad?”
“I’m not worried about the horse. I’m worried you’ll run away from me again.”
“But that stallion is everything to me.”
“He’ll be all right, Toby. Manifesto will find his way to the broodmare barn, and the boys will catch him.”
She watched her horse frolic and buck, nose in the air as he caught the scent of mares. And then as Hugh predicted, the stallion headed for the barns. “Oh, you’re a foolish man,” she said, leaning her head against Hugh’s broad shoulder. He turned Valaire toward High Tor.
“What’s so foolish about me?”
“You ought to be wooing the Albright girls. They’re your future.”
“Gad! I wouldn’t marry one of those wet geese for all the sheep in Dover.”
“Don’t say that. They’re nice ladies.”
“I suppose in their top-lofty way they’re nice enough.”
“They’re not snobs. Remember, they just inherited Fairland six months ago.”
“Let’s stop talking about them.” He urged Valaire into a trot.
Ellie bounced so much in her sidesaddle position she had to cling to him to stay on. Still, she blurted, “If you had to choose one of the Albright sisters, which would it be?”
“Ugh, the thought makes me shudder. Say no more about it.”
“What about Ellie? She’s very much like me, you know.”
“She’s the worst of them all,” Hugh said, pressing Valaire into a gallop.
“She loves horses and she’s a terrific rider.”
“She slinks around and can’t shoot.”
“She has a quick wit and keen intelligence.”
“Which she uses for crawling about on the floor.”
“She … ”
“I can’t hear you!” laughed Hugh, pushing Valaire to run faster. Ellie dropped the conversation and held onto him for dear life.
Valaire thundered up the last rise to High Tor, where Hugh reined the horse to a standstill.
“That wasn’t fair,” Ellie said.
“I don’t want to hear about someone else. I just told you I love you.” He dismounted, lifted her into his arms, and gently put her feet on the ground.
“Promise me you’ll give Ellie a chance.”
“Kiss me,” he said, bringing his face close to hers.
She pulled back. “I will when you promise.”
“I promise.” He moved toward her.
She pulled back again. “Swear to it.”
Hugh laughed, picked her up in his arms, and carried her to the edge of High Tor. She squealed in giddy terror as he hoisted her high above his head. Then he shouted into the rushing wind, “I swear by all things I love most to give Ellie Albright a chance!”
He lowered her to his chest, cradling her in his arms as if she weighed no more than a child. “Now, Toby, may I kiss you?”
Ellie closed her eyes. A sharp pain pierced her heart. “You may.”
His soft lips found her own. Exploring, nudging, his tongue met hers, circled, touched, plunged deeper. He kissed her cheeks, eyes, ears and lips, his warm breath mingling with hers in sweet closeness. “You could put me down,” she whispered.
“No,” he murmured back. “Your body is my anchor. I’m lost without you.” He carried her behind an outcropping of rock and laid her in the grass. The heady scent of heather, gorse, and bay filled her nostrils as the foliage bent beneath her body. The scent grew stronger and mingled with a subtle gust of man as he lowered himself on top of her.
As his lips found hers, her flesh molded to his like molten wax.
Minutes passed, and she couldn’t bear to end the kiss. It grew deeper and more urgent. Hugh held the small of her back, lifting her off the ground and using his teeth and one hand to untie the bow of her cravat. With one hand he slipped her shirt over her head, exposing her breasts to the cold morning air. He kissed and suckled each nipple
,
moving his leg between hers. His thigh touched her. A wave of excitement twisted her hips in a spasm of carnal pleasure. The floppy hat tumbled off and rolled away.
Where were the lessons on the evils of men now when she needed them? Where were the horror stories of women defiled and abandoned? As she watched Hugh tear his clothes off, the beauty of his chest, broad and hard, almost made her cry. Her last vestige of modesty kept her from looking lower.
When he came to her, she touched the wound on his back, still bandaged. She stroked the patch of hair between the plates of his pectorals. She would happily abandon herself to a life of destitution if that’s what it meant to have him now.
Hugh slipped off her boots, unbuttoned her breeches, and pulled them down. The fabric bunched at the ankles, shackling her legs together.
“What do you want to do with those breeches?” he whispered, stroking her naked belly. “You want them off, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Ellie said, lust filling her throat.
“Go ahead, take them off. I’ll help you.”
She pushed at the cloth with her feet — the area between her legs exposed to the sun and breeze. She closed her thighs, suddenly self-conscious.
“It’s all right. Show me what you have for me, Toby,” Hugh said, his voice a throaty grumble. The rough warmth of his hand tugged the breeches over her right ankle. She prevented him from taking her pants off completely, realizing they hid the bandage on her leg.
“You’re beyond beautiful,” he whispered. Starting low, near the knee, his hand traveled up her inner thigh, stroking, exploring. His fingers brushed up her legs until he parted her slightly with the pressure of his hand, kissed her belly, her breasts, and down the inside of her arms. The thumb of one hand worked its way between her thighs. It rested at the top of the V, gently passing through the tangle of hair at the entrance to her core. Back and forth, back and forth, he caressed. She parted her legs ever so slightly and his thumb slipped closer. She gasped as he touched her most intimate area.
Ellie felt herself grow wet. It embarrassed her. She closed her thighs and tried to move his hand away. “No, my love,” he whispered. “It’s right and proper. It’s what I’ve been waiting for.”
He parted her legs, dipped down, and let his tongue flick against the nub at the center of her womanhood.
His tongue felt like satin, sliding in short, steady strokes. In concert with his tongue, Hugh’s finger continued its rhythm, only stronger now, more insistent as he explored the folds of her private V. Each touch sent sensation coursing through her. Her body jumped and trembled. She grabbed tufts of grass and held onto them, breathing hard as the heat and longing swelled.
An all-consuming music shook her body and made her blind. Then a roaring crescendo, a paroxysm of joy, swept through her. “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” she cried, arching her back, her hands reaching for Hugh. Torn strands of grass dangled between her fingers.
She closed her legs, unable to bear any more. Her breath came in short gasps. She clutched her breasts as if they alone could douse the fire in her body. The grass slid down her rib cage. “I want you inside of me,” she said.
Hugh kissed her as she rolled back and forth waiting for the clamor to die. “Not yet, my good girl,” he mumbled. “Not yet, my Toby.”
At his words, she buried her face in the grass and silently mouthed, “Not Toby.” A lump clotted her throat. She could never tell him. To lose him would be unbearable.
The chill air had succumbed to the insistence of the sun. Their sweating bodies dried as they lay in each other’s arms.
Ellie heard Hugh’s heartbeat, her head resting on his chest. A breeze moved a white curl on her brow. She brushed it away and stared at a cloud in the perfect blue sky.
“What are you thinking?” Hugh asked.
“That time should stop.”
“You were thinking that?”
“I was.”
Hugh rolled over and kissed her deeply. He pulled her to him, and ran his fingers through her hair. There was urgency in his touch — an emotion so powerful, he quaked from it.
Looking into his beautiful brown eyes, Ellie saw fathomless pools of love. Her heart ached that her deception filled those pools.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes.” She looked at the distant sea, a gray line at the edge of the moor.
He held her close. “It’s ours forever, my love. My perfect, wonderful Toby.”
“Ours?”
“I’ll make it my first wedding gift.”
She felt faint. Pain crammed her throat. “No,” she said.
Hugh looked at her. “No, what?
“Please don’t ask me to marry you.”
“Not ask you? What kind of nonsense is that? You love me.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
Ellie concentrated on the sea as her chest crushed against the beat of her heart. “I do love you. God help me, I do.” She closed her eyes as tears welled over the lids. “But I can tell you with absolute certainty: you will never marry Toby Coopersmith.”